Found Missing (Decorah Security Series, Book #14): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (17 page)

“And he could kill me—and then all of you.”

“Your father would kill you?” he asked, hearing the incredulity in his own voice.

“When I said he could get rid of anyone, I meant it. You don’t know what he does to people who cross him. If Gabe Thompson doesn’t want me now, I’ve ruined Dad’s plans.”

“Jesus.” The idea of Oakland killing his own daughter—Jenny to be exact—was sickening. But Grant wouldn’t let it happen. “You’re going to help us pull it off. “

His mind scrambled for order. He had a lot to do, and they’d better deal with the most urgent business first.

“We took a video of the estate from a drone. It’s as luxurious as the Mirador hotel.”

“Uh huh. The Mirador was like the luxury I was used to. But I was punished if I was ‘bad.’”

He wanted to know about that, but what he had to do now was focus on the current situation.

Where are you in the house?”

“In my bedroom.”

“Which is where?”

“As you’re facing the mansion, it’s in the wing on the left.”

“Okay.”

He kept asking questions in rapid succession.

“Are there a lot of bedrooms over there?”

“Five. Mine is at the end of the hall.”

“Anything else that would help us find you quickly?”

“There’s a bed of expensive hybrid rosebushes outside my window.”

“Good. And how many men can we expect to find in the house?”

“My father and probably four security guys.”

“Armed with?”

“Automatic handguns. And automatic rifles if they need them.”

“Good to know.” He swallowed hard. “When Carlos brought you in, you were in handcuffs.”

“How do you know that?”

“From the drone. It happened to be there when you arrived.”

“Are you still handcuffed?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re wearing that gown?”

“Yes. I guess he figured I wasn’t going escape half naked with my hands cuffed.”

Grant winced. “We should get you out of those cuffs.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you. You’re cuffed with your hands in front of you, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, that makes it easier because you can see what you’re doing.” He shifted so he could reach the drawer of the small table beside the bed. From inside, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and a large paper clip.

Jenny started at the objects. “Where did those come from?”

He laughed. “I guess I put them there. I mean, I made this place. Well, it’s a copy of the room you created last night. But this one’s mine, and I can bring in anything I want.”

She nodded.

He held up the police-issue cuffs. “Basic handcuffs work by moving a rounded ridged bar into a ratchet with ridges which keep the lock from opening. To unlock the handcuffs, you use a key to push the ridges inside so the bar can slide back.

“But we can use a paper clip, bobby pin or something similar instead of a key.”

He opened up one end of the paper clip, inserted it in the lock, and bent it at a right angle to make an L.

“Now we can stick the end part of the L inside the lock and turn it like a key to push down the inside ridges.”

He locked the cuffs and demonstrated what he’d just told her. The cuffs snapped open. Locking them again, he handed them to her along with the paper clip.

“Try it.”

She inserted the end in the keyhole and moved it around a bit, feeling for the ridges. When the lock snapped open, she grinned at him in triumph.

“Try it again.”

She practiced several more times.

“Do you have a paper clip in your room?”

“On my old school papers.”

All at once, he could see a change in her expression.

“What?”

“He’s coming. I can’t be here.”

“Wait.”

The word was barely out of his mouth, when she disappeared from beside him. One moment she was on the bed and in the next she was simply gone.

Jenny swung around on the bed in her room so that she was facing the door. When he father stepped inside, she forced herself not to shrink away.

“Are you satisfied, bitch?” he asked.

“About what?” she replied, struggling to keep her voice steady.

“All you had to do was marry Gabe Thompson. You liked him. He was fine in bed. But no. You decided you were too good for him.”

“Not too good,” she whispered.

“Oh yeah. And how would you put it?”

She was sorry she had protested. Better to let him rant and get some of the anger out of his system, because anything she said was going to make him angrier.

“Answer me,” he spat out.

“It wasn’t the kind of marriage I wanted.”

“Oh, that’s just fine.” He glared at her. “It wasn’t your decision to make.”

When she remained silent, he shouted, “Say something.”

“I’m sorry,” she managed. She wasn’t sorry for what she had done. She was sorry that he’d found her and hauled her back—and that he knew she’d been with Decorah Security.

“I’m going to make sure you’re damn sorry,” he said. “I’m sure Gabe doesn’t trust you enough to have you for a wife. But I can give you to him to do whatever he wants. And as far as I’m concerned, that can be
anything.
”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

“And I’m going to find that bastard who was helping you out and cut his balls off before I carve up the rest of him.”

She couldn’t hold back a gasp—which drew a look of satisfaction from her father.

When he turned and stomped out of the room, she clamped her hands into fists.  She had left the Decorah safe house with a gun, thinking she was going to shoot this man. Then she’d thought that maybe if she held him at gunpoint, she could reason with him.

For years she had sensed that he was a bad person without knowing precisely why. Now she knew he was beyond bad. He was almost the definition of evil. And she knew for sure that there was only one way to end his vicious behavior.

oOo

Grant reached out to where Jenny had been lying. The sheets felt warm, but she was no longer there. He moved over and buried his face in the bedding. He longed to call her back, but he knew that was the wrong thing to do. She needed to speak to her father, and it would be dangerous to have her missing in action.

With a sigh, he heaved himself off the bed, exited the room, and walked down the hall to the living area.

As he blocked the light from the hallway, everybody looked up expectantly.

“It worked,” Frank said.

“How do you know?”

“From your face.”

Grant nodded. “Yes, I pulled her into the . . .” He rocked his hand back and forth, “The fake VR with me. We talked, but she had to go back—because the guy who had her snatched up was coming back.”

“So who kidnapped her?” Cole asked.

He swallowed before answering. “It’s complicated. Her father gave her to a guy who turned out to be a thug. She ran away, and her dad was determined to bring her back—and make her sorry she ran.”

The men stared at him, some looking like they didn’t believe it was true.

“This is all about her father?” Cole said. “You mean she’s not really in danger?”

“She’s in danger, all right. Imminent danger. He sees her as a slave who disobeyed her master. She’s wearing a flimsy gown, handcuffed, and locked in her room. I showed her how to unlock the cuffs.” Grant filled them in on what Jenny had told him about her relationship with Oakland and his sister and how her mother had managed to escape.

“Jesus,” Ben said.

“Oakland’s got at least four men,” Grant added. “Well armed. Just rushing in there could get one of you killed.”

“We were talking about a diversion, to pull the guards away from the house.”

“Like what?”

We’re bringing in a larger drone with a payload. We’ll drop a bomb in the garden area in back of the swimming pool. Some of the guards will rush over. Some will stay. But we’ll take them by surprise—with a couple of wolves.”

“Yeah, good thinking, but I want to try something that will help—if I can do it.”

When Frank raised an inquiring eyebrow, he went on, “I brought Jenny into the VR with me. If I can reverse it—go to where she is—then I can contact Mack and tell you exactly what’s going on in the house.”

“You think you can do it?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know, but give me a chance to try.”

Frank pinned him with a sharp look. “Okay, but you’re the one who thinks we don’t have much time.”

“Right.” Grant turned and hurried back to the bedroom. Lying down on the bed again, he reached for the place where Jenny had been lying. The sheet was barely warm now, but he felt the ghost of her presence there.

Closing his eyes, he focused on the woman he loved. The way she looked. The way she tasted. The way she felt in his arms. And the way she had tried to run away because she thought she had put Decorah Security in jeopardy simply by being alive.

That thought made his chest squeeze.

“Jenny,” he whispered. “Don’t you know how much I want to be with you?”

In his mind he kept reaching out toward her, kept speaking to her. For long minutes nothing happened, and he thought he’d have to go back to the other agents in defeat.  Then he heard her voice in his head. It was low and far away, but he heard her.

Grant? Is that you?

Yes.

Where are you?

Keep talking to me. Try to pull me closer to you.

I don’t know how.

Neither of us knows how. Just reach out like you want to hold me in your arms.

He wasn’t sure how to reach her. All he could do was follow the advice he’d given Jenny. Only he had a small advantage because he had spent years communicating mind to mind with his brother. Still, it wasn’t easy. When her voice grew louder, his pulse beat faster.

That’s it. I think it’s working. Keep pulling me in—like you did last night in the place like the VR. Like I pulled you in today.

He kept speaking to her, so she could use his voice as a guidepost. He seemed to be in some place with no light and no sound except her voice. Then he saw a spot of brightness, like a door had opened at the end of a tunnel. He rushed forward, and all at once he was standing in a bedroom.

“Jenny, thank God,” he breathed as he reached for her.

She looked shocked to see that he was there, but she came into his arms, clinging to him.

He wanted to keep holding her, but they had work to do.

When he eased away, he looked around the room. It was a frilly little girl’s room, with white French furniture and a bedspread and curtains in shades of pink.

“Jesus. This looks like a room for a ten year old.”

“It was. My mom decorated it for me when I was eight. She left when I was ten, and my father never changed it.”

“How did you keep from going crazy?”

She answered with a small laugh. “I had a lot of interests. I read. I made pottery... I learned how to make window panels out of stained glass. I guess I have a lot of artistic talents.”

He looked at her and saw that she’d taken off the handcuffs and had pulled open several drawers in a cabinet under the window.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for a weapon.” She gulped. “He said he was going to give me to Gabe Thompson to do anything he wanted with me, and he said he was going to . . . cut you to pieces. I have to stop him. And I think I can do it, because he assumes I’m so cowed that I won’t do anything to fight him.”

“He doesn’t know you’re not the scared woman who first came to the VR.”

“Not hardly.”

He stepped to the cabinet and put his hand on one of the open drawers. He could barely feel it. And when he whacked his palm against the wood, it seemed to go partly through.

He looked from his hand to the drawer. “I can’t really touch anything here—except you.”

“I see. It’s weird.”

“Let me tell Mack the situation. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

He closed his eyes, reaching out to his brother who was apparently standing by, waiting for the contact.

Grant?

Yeah. I’m in her bedroom. Sort of. I can touch her, but I can’t touch anything else.

Okay, what if we have the drone drop its payload in twenty minutes?

Fine.

He broke off the communication and looked back at Jenny. “They’re using a drone to drop a bomb on the property in twenty minutes. We need to get out of this room.” He sighed. “Well, you need to get out. Unfortunately, I’m not really here. I mean, I can’t do anything physical—like, for example, break the door down. And, uh, maybe you want to put on some clothes.”

Grant felt a sudden wave of dizziness. For a moment the scene around him shimmered, and he thought he was going to lose the connection with Jenny’s surroundings. Desperately, he clung to the scene and finally, he was able to make it stabilize.

“What happened?” Jenny gasped out.

“I thought I was being pulled out of here.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But it’s okay now.”

“Good.”

She crossed to a dresser, and took out underwear and a tee shirt and jeans. Then she took off the gown and dressed.

As she pulled on her shoes, she said, “I learned how to escape from this room a long time ago. I used to walk around the house and go outside in the middle of the night. From the table beside the bed, she picked up the paper clip she’d used to open the handcuffs and started toward the door. Before she reached it the knob turned.

Jenny froze.

Grant’s impulse was to put himself between her and the door. But what good would that do? He had no physical presence here.

Jenny backed away toward one of the open drawers and reached inside. He saw her take out some kind of small craft knife and hold it down beside her leg.

The door opened and a man stepped into the room. He had dyed black hair and a lined face, but his body was fit and trim. It was the man in the photograph, the man who had met her when Carlos brought her in. As her father stared at Jenny his expression darkened.

From where he stood in the corner, Grant reached out to his brother.

Mack, if you can drop the bomb now, do it. If you can hear me, drop the bomb now.

Without waiting for a reply, he switched his attention back to the bedroom.

“What the hell? How did you get out of those handcuffs?” Oakland demanded.

“Magic.”

“Don’t get smart with me, young lady. I didn’t give you permission to get dressed.”

Grant stepped into the conversation. “Yes, magic,” he confirmed, as he lunged toward the angry man, waving his arms and making bellowing sounds. His fist would have connected with the man’s chin if he’d really been in the room. Instead, it kind of glanced off.

Dad stopped in his tracks, his hand fingering his chin. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s me, you son of a bitch,” Grant shouted. He didn’t know what Oakland was seeing, hearing and feeling from him, but it was obviously
something.

Still Grant was only a momentary distraction. After the ghostly encounter, Oakland started forward again, his hands raised as though he intended to choke the life out of Jenny. As her father advanced on her, she brought the hand with the knife up, slashing through his white dress shirt and into his arm.

“You bitch.” He jumped away and pulled a gun, pointing it at her chest.